Andrea Lucchesini’s career continues discreetly in the shadow of more mediatized Italian pianists. The star pupil, like Nelson Goerner, of the great Maria Tipo, Lucchesini has invested a lot of his time into concerts and recording. After becoming known for his interpretations of Luciano Berio’s music, in particular his concerto Echoing Curves directed by the composer himself, he has recorded the integrity of Beethoven’s sonatas for the label Stradivarius.
Over the last few years, Lucchesini has concentrated on Schubert, “my great love”, he calls him. These two very different composers on the cusp of romanticism fascinate Andrea Lucchesini who presents here his first volume dedicated to the late works of Schubert. These works were written at a time when the composer of Lieder returned to composing sonatas amidst greats like Beethoven who also coincidentally lived in the same town.
For Lucchesini, Schubert remains an enigma. The man left behind almost no written documents, he never stayed put in one precise residence and no one could understand his shyness, agitation, nor his latent homosexuality. “Rediscovering his final works”, says Andrea Lucchenini, “showed me the difference between the artist who entertained his friends and the composer who worked in solitude without any prospect of being published nor played.” Such solitude that longs to break free can be heard clearly in this album, particularly in the interpretation of Andantino of Sonata D. 959 through which troubling phantoms move. © François Hudry/Qobuz